No way out reflection

Just to be very honest, I don’t know exactly why suffering exist. I think it’s something that already exist that is uncontrollable, so no one can stop it. The best that people can do is to deal with their own feelings because it’s not under their control. Just like Ort in the book, he always questioned why he doesn’t get that chance to be born in a wealthy family. In the end, he can’t do anything else other than live with it. And I don’t think there’s anyone to blame for because blaming won’t change anything. I understand Ort’s state because he’s still young and it is very hard to face this circumstance since young. I think blaming is just a sign to show discourage from living and sometimes letting it out or blaming someone can be a good choice to release stress. Just from what I learned in world religion, there’s a theory that mentioned that religions were created from people who can’t deal with their problems, so they started to find something to be there for them. I think that might be true because spiritual things are there for us to do something that will satisfy us. For example, people might praise gods to feel that there’s someone there to protect or they might blame the gods when they did something wrong.

And in the topic of karma, I think it’s good that you get what you do wrong. It is important to realize what you did even though it is hard. People won’t realize what they did wrong until they experienced it. And I truly believe that bad people will get their punishment even when no one realize it. Even though the world is full of injustice, there’s a lot of time when people don’t know what those bad people received. I’ve heard that those karma doesn’t have a specific coming time, but they will come maybe this life or maybe the after life. I think we can be mad about the injustice or bad people, but we should also get over it after a while. Having negative thoughts in our mind won’t be a positive thing.

In my opinion, this is a very emotional book to read. This might be because it’s the book that I can really relate to my everyday life. I might see someone like characters in the book just by looking out the car window. It is as simple as that. And problems in the book is something that have been going around for years. I don’t want to blame anyone, but I feel bad for those who have to face those circumstances. After reading this, I feel so grateful about my life. The problems or hardship that I complained are not even comparable to that of them.

World War II poetry analysis

Poem by F.R. Scott

When I see the falling bombs

Then I see defended homes.

Men above and men below

Die to save the good they know.

Through the wrong the bullets prove

Shows the bravery of love.

Pro and con have single stem

Half a truth dividing them.

Between the dagger and the breast

The bond is stronger than the beast.

Prison, ghetto, flag and gun

Mark the craving for the One.

Persecution’s cruel mouth

Shows a twisted love of truth.

Deeper than the rack and rope

Lies the double human hope.

My good, your good, good we seek

Though we turn no other cheek.

He who slays and he who’s slain

Like in purpose, like in pain.

In this poem, the first thing that comes into mind while reading this is that the poem is in the form of couplet end rhyme. The last word of every two lines will rhyme with each other, and the two lines talk about one thing and the next talk about the other topic. The next thing I think stood out to me was that he uses a lot of comparison in the poem such as men above and men below, deeper than the rack and rope, and pros and cons. He play with a lot of words with the same consonant sound and uses repeating phrase like he who slays and he who’s slain.

The meaning of this poem in my opinion is about the lost that people have to risk for. When they see the bomb, it can be sad and terrified. But they know because they are here right now, their homes are safe. In the verse men above and men below, I think he means the men that’s standing preparing and the dead men know that they die because of a good deed. We are doing this to show the bravery of love. The wounds from war create a bond that everyone can feel. In the deeper side, this is everyone’s hope. It’s good that we are safe, those men that died are for the good purpose.

In my opinion I really like this poem. I think it is an easy understanding poem that can be represent any war in the world and not just the World War II. This is something that happens a lot during wars and I think it’s very deep for some people. I really like how he emphasized the fact that those men are doing for a better result. They might see bombing, but they are protecting homes and the countries. They know that they are human’s hope. The language of this poem make it sound more interesting to me because the words and the layout is very catchy. Even though this is a good poem, it is still depressing to hear about wars and what those men have to give for a victory.

Nationalism

In my opinion, the loving for their country is what everyone should do, but it should be just enough that it won’t be chaotic. A lot of time we see pictures of nationalists being too extreme about their lovings and that makes a lot of people dislike them. What I really like about nationalists is they really love their country no matter what. Like I said, we should love our country, but within the limit because a lot of people nowadays don’t appreciate their countries at all. Many times I see people appreciating other countries more and putting too much hate on your own country. I think having some patriotism is good because people tend to overlook the importance of their country. Like what I mentioned in my blogs, I think what a lot of people do when they become successful is they left the past that brought them up. I always hear people say my country is bad and I think this country is better and why is my country not this good. This shows me how they really forget the importance of it. Don’t expect people to admire your country because you don’t even recognise its worth.

What I think is bad about being patriotism is that people get too extreme about it. I think some people go too far and it exceed the limit. I value options a lot, and a lot of nationalists don’t agree with that. I think respecting other people’s opinion is what everyone should do no matter what. And a lot of times when those nationalists are not happy with other people, they decide to use violence. In my opinion, I think they use violence as a protection from their fear. I think deep in their heart they know that most of the time their opinion is not right, and they choose violence to make it seem like they win.

The War of ideas

In the topic of ideas, I don’t think we should set any standard to any ideas. My definition of ideas is unlimited because this is all opinion based and there’s no right or wrong answer. I would say the idea of fundamentalism is somehow dangerous because sometimes those freedom of thoughts that people get can go too far. But whatsoever, those are their opinion about the world and people should then respect their thoughts. I think by setting “ideological values” will not do anything better because people will still want their freedom to choose like before. This can be seen in many Asian families, they will set a standard of jobs that their kids should be when they grow up. As you know everyone is born differently and each one have their own speciality. By limiting the possibilities of jobs that they should do is like forcing the world to a narrower perspective. And the world will never grow if everyone is doing the same thing.

Like what I’ve said in class about the “modern” or “progressive” values, I don’t think that those are something that changed a lot from the past. In terms of environment, yes it did improved a lot, but what about in term of the mind. Did people change or improve with the “modern” world? The answer would be yes, but did it really change until the point that it’s good enough to be called modern? I would say no because I think the improvement is just people start to adapt to the new things coming to their lives, but the mindset of people is still similar to the past. I would considered a true modernise world when everyone is truly equal and they can express themselves to the fullest.

Extra Credit Blog

From the focus of “the collision of morality, culture, and human rights,” what interest me is how each of us have different viewpoints or perspectives. We went through a lot of discussion, and each time some of us have different perspective sometimes total opposite of each others. This interest me because it is nice to learn about other people’s perspective. I really like when we focus on the topic of human rights because it’s when we get to do discussions based on the topics we get. That was a good chance or us to show our viewpoint and goes through many problems in the world. This also also reminded me of respecting other people’s opinion because during this, there’s a lot of opposite comments. I always try to remind myself to argue with limits because during discussion, it is very easy to cross that line. Personally I don’t like when some people are sometimes going too much on my viewpoints, so I will try to respect everyone like what I want to be treated.

In the focus of culture during the Good Earth discussions, I see how a lot of people can relate to my experiences. There’s a lot of Asians in the class and a lot of those are Thai-Chinese. It was very fun to exchange culture values because even though we are technically the same race, but we still grow up differently. I really like listening to foreigners especially westerners because I want to know their viewpoints. There’s distinct characteristics between Westerners and Asians and I really want to know what make them different.

Childhood rebellion

In my opinion, childhood rebellion relates to understanding. It always start with not understanding and then the only thing teenagers can do is go against it. In the perspective of a teenager, I think parents and the kid doesn’t have the same perspective when they look at the same thing. I can be 100% sure that everyone at least once has to disagree with something your parents say. It is because they were raised in different point of views, different environments, different time period, and much more. They are basically thinking in their perspective. When they compare us to their childhood and how they grow up, it always causes problems because it is not the same. They always put us in the perspective of kids 40 or 50 years ago, and the world are changing. My parents always say ” when I was your age….,” and that annoyed me so much because their teenage life is not the same as mine .This is like the Good Earth, it is not wrong that Wang Lung’s son can’t see the worth of keeping the land and suggest to sell them because in their time, lands are not as important as the time of Wang Lung.

In our society, especially asians, adult think that they are always right because they are old and they have lived in the world for so long. Childhood rebellion will be avoidable if adult stop using this excuse to win an argument. I don’t disagree that you have more experience than me, but the point is you cannot understand some of my point because you are not me. I know that sometimes they warn us or stop us because they are worried about us, but sometimes it is too much. For example, my family are very against wearing cloths that show too much body parts. They always complain every time they see someone wearing shorts or something appealing. So you can guess, I cannot wear short short, yes I cannot. They think that girls that wear those cloths are bad girls or play girls, which is not true. I mean if we only look at this topic, then girls in the whole world are mostly bad. I know that they care about my security, but this is a trend right now and it’s ok to wear it.

How hard it is to find

How hard it is to find

that person with the right mind

Who has the personality that’s actually kind

Who can be my partner in crime

Who does everything like a name signed

Who always put me on a shrine

Hopefully I’ll find the right guy

My poem is call “How hard it is to find,” and it’s inspired by Rumi’s topic of beauty and love. I relate the “beauty” mentioned in Rumi’s poem as the worth of women. In our world today, it is very hard to find a partner that’s actually good from the soul. Some men can be evil and disrespect the women, and some of those men realise the worth after they are being divorced or whatsoever. Most of the time, they will realise the beauty or the worth when it’s too late..So in conclusion when there’s beauty that you actually recognised , there will be love.

Rumi’s poetry

All through eternity

All through eternity

Beauty unveils His exquisite form

in the solitude of nothingness;

He holds a mirror to His Face

and beholds His own beauty.

he is the knower and the known,

the seer and the seen;

No eye but His own

has ever looked upon this Universe.

His every quality finds an expression:

Eternity becomes the verdant field of Time and Space;

Love, the life-giving garden of this world.

Every branch and leaf and fruit

Reveals an aspect of His perfection-

They cypress give hint of His majesty,

The rose gives tidings of His beauty.

Whenever Beauty looks,

Love is also there;

Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek

Love lights Her fire from that flame.

When beauty dwells in the dark folds of night

Love comes and finds a heart

entangled in tresses.

Beauty and Love are as body and soul.

Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.

They have together

since the beginning of time-

Side by side, step by step.

“All through eternity” is the poem that links beauty and love together. It is basically saying that in every step of life, this two things go together. This poem talks about the fact that there’s beauty in beauty and there’s love along side. For example, when you actually discovered someone’s true beauty, you’ll be in love with that person no matter what type of the relationship is. This might also be a poem that relates to God because the poem mentioned that “He holds a mirror to His Face and beholds His own beauty. he is the knower and the known,” and it also talks about eternity which God is eternal.

In this poem the writer repeat a lot of the same pattern. It will start with the word when or whenever and followed by beauty is this, so love is this. For example, “Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek, Love lights Her fire from that flame,” and it repeats this a couple of times.

Culture and Morality

when we talk about the context of culture and morality, I think it’s more about your opinion. These things developed through different environment and actions, so it cannot be discussed as a right or a wrong thing. When we judge others’ culture or morality, it’s more like we are judging them based on how we grow up. How we grew up will impact what we think about others. It will make us think that what we follow or believe is the only truth. It’s not wrong that someone did something that we think it’s wrong. They might grew up in a circumstance that that particular action is right. And I think it’s better to tell them straight ahead that we think it’s wrong and help them fix it.

From my own experience, people around me concern about how people dress up. I grew up in the culture that wearing shorts or showing too much skin cloths are inappropriate. However, compare to American society, they are opened and kids around my age have freedom to wear whatever they want. Growing up differently doesn’t make me have the rights to judge that those Americans who expose too much are bad. It’s just we have different culture that we have to practice.

Human rights‼️🙋🏻‍♀️

Human rights is the very sensitive problem to talk in today’s society. In my opinion, the most important human rights is the freedom of opinion because each person has different aspect of the same situation. It is very important to respect other people’s opinion. People have to understand that everyone who disagree with your opinion is not bad, they just have their own thoughts that’s not the same as yours. We can see this problem happens a lot right now especially about the politics of a lot of countries. For example, right now some Thais start to go against some company or community just because their political views are not the same as them. I think this is a serious problem because it really feel bad getting pressured by others to agree with them when we should have your own opinions.

I think the hardest to fully ensure are the human rights as a whole. From what I’ve seen and learned, these human rights doesn’t change much from the past. Maybe it is changing, but it is walking in a very slow pace. Every year we will hear news that some group of people start protesting about different topics of human rights, but it never actually change much. I don’t think any of the human rights are easy to fully ensure because I cannot see any progress on ay of them. For example, in American right now, they are protesting about black lives. I think it is good to call out and inform people about this situation, but how many times that this type of protest happened. I think thousands or even more. To be honest, I don’t think any of us will ever get a fully ensure human rights. No matter how hard we try to try fixing the broken bucket, the water will eventually leak from a hole.